“Jesus, Jim. They’re threatening to unleash a plague on the country. Try to keep that in mind. The stakes here are extremely high. This isn’t just black and white. It’s very gray.” Craig Simms’s face was red as he glared at his FBI counterpart.
“Keep in mind you’re not the only one with a family, Craig,” Allenby said icily.
“Okay, enough,” Rothery said. “We’ve got a problem, and now we’ve got a deadline. We know when they plan to release the virus and we know what their demands are. So right now, we’re in a better position than we were an hour ago.” He rose and paced about the room. “Straight off the top, this information remains inside this room. There will be no mention of the deadline to the press or to any member of your staff without top-level clearance. Is this clearly understood?” Everyone in the room nodded silently.
“Jim, this is going to fall mostly on yours and my shoulders, as the threat is inside our borders. Craig, we’ll be looking for everything you can give us, despite the fact that the CIA is prohibited from using their powers domestically. Tony, get your rocket scientists at Crypto-City to calculate every conceivable method of releasing this virus on a mass scale. Every time you get another new scenario, forward it to Jim’s office. Jim, you take the information from NSA and run with it. If they say that the virus could be introduced through contaminated cups at Starbucks, get to the factory that makes the cups and check it out. Nothing falls through the cracks.
“Tony, I want you to follow up with the pharmaceutical companies trying to decode this virus. Especially GlasoKlan. They were the ones who had identified the nucleic acid genome. Stay on top of every advance these research groups make. If we can come up with a method to fight this virus, we’ve got bargaining power with these guys.” He stopped pacing for a moment and turned to Edward Henning. “Dr. Henning, what’s your take on all this? How much danger are we in?”
Henning was thoughtful and took a few seconds to choose his words. When he spoke, it was in a clear and concise manner. “We are in very serious trouble, Mr. Under Secretary. If the terrorists are serious about releasing the virus in one week, their method of doing so is probably already in place. It may be too late, even for them, to stop it. And although they appeared quite composed and ready to bargain in good faith, I doubt that is the case. My feeling is that no matter what you do, they’re going to release the virus.”
The room was absolutely silent.
“In my opinion,” Henning said quietly, “you have only one option. Find something to combat this virus.”
“And if we can’t?” Rothery said.
“Then be prepared for the terrorists to unleash the virus. And be prepared for it to be a lethal dose.”
51
Jennifer finished the last of her twenty-five laps in the pool and toweled off. The sun was hot for mid-September and the mercury was static at eighty-nine. Logically, September should be hot; technically, it was still summer until the twenty-first. She wrapped the towel around her waist, walked barefoot back through the lobby, and took the elevator to the fourth floor. Gordon let her in when she knocked.
She dressed and dried her hair, put on a few touches of makeup, and joined Gordon at the small table next to the bed. He was splitting his time between the computer, which was tied in to the Internet, and the television, which was locked on CNN. It was the top of the hour and a serious-looking man in his thirties was giving an update on the biological terrorist threat. Jennifer stood next to Gordon and watched the broadcast with her hand on his shoulder.
“There are conflicting reports as to whether the government task force, headed by J.D. Rothery of the Department of Homeland Security, has actually received demands from a group calling themselves the Islamic Front for Justice. Rothery and his counterparts from the FBI, CIA, and NSA are all denying there has been any communication. But CNN has information that appears to be authentic that indicates Rothery’s task force was issued an ultimatum yesterday. The ultimatum contains two as yet unknown demands with a deadline of September twenty-third. If that is true, the government has six days to avert what could become al-Qaeda’s deadliest strike against Americans on their own soil. When asked about the ultimatum, Rothery’s reply was terse.”
Rothery appeared on the screen walking into L’Enfant Plaza. The small printing in the corner read, “Saturday, September 17, 11 A.M.,” two hours earlier. Rothery did not stop moving as the reporter asked him about the demands but shot back a barbed reply. “I don’t know where you guys are getting your information, but you’re going to panic a lot of people for no reason.” The camera caught his back as he entered the building and then the screen flashed back to the reporter.
“This is Jason Langen reporting from Washington, D.C.”
Gordon set his hand on Jennifer’s and they interlocked fingers. “This is getting serious,” he said. “That Rothery guy looks pretty stressed.”
“He’s in the hot seat, all right. I wouldn’t want to be him right now.”
Gordon turned slightly to face her. “I’ve been surfing through some of the files on Enron and I’ve got an idea.”
“What’s that?” she asked, sitting on his knee.
“The securities commission are the big dogs here. They’re the ones who can bite. If we give them what we’ve got on Veritas, it’ll turn the heat on Andrews. He’ll be too busy trying to patch things up before the commission begins a formal investigation to worry about us. And once the securities auditors get their noses into the books, Andrews is in serious trouble.”
She nodded. “That’s an excellent idea. Too bad today is Saturday. We’ll have to wait until Monday to call them.”
“You think it might cause him some grief?” Gordon asked.
“Absolutely. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. Turning the securities commission loose on him is brilliant. Once we’ve got him on the defensive, we can get whatever information we have on the murders to the police. He’s not as likely to try to kill us once we’ve pointed a very public finger at him. He’d be the prime suspect if we disappeared.”
“Okay, that gives us Albert, Kenga, and Wes Connors, who were all murdered. A competent homicide investigator could probably tie each of those murders back to Andrews.”
“And add to that we know the murder of that family in Denver is somehow tied to Bruce Andrews. He probably killed that man because he let me live.” She felt a shudder up her spine at the thought. She lived and he died. No mercy in Bruce Andrews’s books. “God, his whole family is dead.”
“He brought that on himself,” Gordon said. “If he wasn’t involved with Andrews, it would never have happened. He might have been the person who killed Kenga Bakcsi and Albert Rousseau. You’ll probably never know how deeply involved he was.”
“You’re right. Okay, Monday it is. We put a call in to the securities commission and give them everything we’ve got on Bruce Andrews and Veritas.”
Gordon smiled at her enthusiasm. It was good to hear a positive tone in her voice again. “Monday, then,” he said.
52
Keith Thompson arrived at J.D. Rothery’s office early Sunday morning with a thick file under his arm. His normal cheerful disposition was muted, his face showing more age lines than his thirty-three years should. His Scandinavian heritage showed through in his blond hair and blue eyes, and he wore baggy black pants and a T-shirt, his usual attire for the office. That he had a one-on-one meeting with one of the most influential men in the Department of Homeland Security meant little to him. What was in his file was all that was on his mind.